Need some help navigating the world of Gransys in Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen? These tips and tricks are aimed at beginners.
The world of Gransys is a harsh mistress if you don’t respect her. You’ll need some basic familiarity with how the game expects you to play it before you venture forth. Take these Dragon’s Dogma tips and tricks to heart and you’ll survive many of your encounters within the game.
Save often, the world of Gransys is harsh.
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen embraces the idea that your character is just a village bumpkin called to greatness at the beginning. You have no skills beyond picking up a sword and swinging it. The goal of the game is to outfit a party of four adventurers (yourself, your pawn + two hirelings) and survive in the world.
You need to save early and save often to avoid setbacks when adventuring. Unlike other RPGs that offer multiple save states, Dragon’s Dogma only has one save state. You have to live with any mistakes you make or quest failures that happen.
On Switch, there is a shortcut to make frequent saving easier. You enter the pause menu and usually press up twice to highlight the ‘Save/Exit’ option. On Switch, press + to pause and then double press – to start the quick save prompt. This will save your game and you can continue on.
Choosing pawns is like putting together a DnD party.
Dragon’s Dogma is a party adventure game so take pawn creation and choosing your party seriously. Your pawns should have abilities that can help control the flow of the fight like stuns and disables, but also abilities that enchant weapons versus certain elements.
For example, you’ll encounter lizard men around water sources that are weak to being frozen by ice weapon enchants. Using a mace against them while frozen is devastating. There are multiple elemental resistances and weaknesses to exploit among the monsters and bandits you’ll encounter in the world.
A balanced party for surviving will include you, your pawn, and at least two magic-casting pawns. The ‘Anodyne’ and ‘High Anodyne’ skills are the healing spells in Dragon’s Dogma. You should have two pawns with this skill to help keep your party alive during rough scraps.
As you level up and explore the world, you’re likely to out level the pawns you’ve chosen. Visit the pawn stones frequently and choose new level-appropriate pawns for your adventure. You can also find new pawns wandering around the world. Talk to them and favorite them to see them the next time you spawn pawns to choose from. You can have around 100 favorite pawns.
Get ready to explore every nook and cranny.
Gransys isn’t a huge world compared to modern games, but the developers have packed it full of new places to discover. You should explore roof tops, caves, near waterfalls, and anywhere that just doesn’t look quite right. Advancing your character and pawn means finding lots of resources and crafting curatives – so explore.
You should carry Ferrystones to help you fast travel in a pinch. A ferrystone works to teleport the player and the party back to Gran Soren. They’re a one-time use item until you get the Eternal Ferrystone when you reach Gran Soren. If you accidentally sell the Eternal Ferrystone, you can repurchase it at the Black Cat for 2 million gold.
Avoid traveling at night unless you need to do so.
Monsters come out to play at night in droves and you may find your party surrounded. Plan your travel around the world to avoid being caught unaware at night, or have plenty of curatives on hand to keep your party in shape. You also don’t have to fight everything in front of you. Players can spam the ‘Come’ command to get your pawns to follow you in retreat.
You can sleep at an inn to maximize the amount of daylight available to you. Sleeping restores your health and your ability to be healed. You should always rest at an inn before setting out on any task.
Dragon’s Dogma Tips – Weight management is important.
Everything you carry on your person contributes to your weight limit. Carefully planning how much you carry is part of forming a good adventuring party. You should never plan an expedition outside of city gates while carrying an ‘Average’ amount of weight.
You will be picking up all kinds of curatives and items to improve your weapons. The player can store these items with any innkeeper, so you should make an effort to offload them each time you return to town. Use the ‘combine’ function at inns to make your curatives and then buy what you need. It’s best to treat the innkeep like the the item box from the Monster Hunter series. It’s a place where you store items and gear up for your expeditions.
When you visit a blacksmith to upgrade items, all of that random junk you stored with the innkeep will come in handy. It will also be automatically withdrawn, so you don’t have to worry about what you need.
Pass out lanterns and collect empty flasks for oil.
You can find or buy lanterns for your pawns that will make traveling at night a lot easier. These lanterns need oil to operate, so you’ll need to divvy up some oil to your pawns as well. Lanterns are indispensable in caves, just be careful of water sources. If you walk underneath a waterfall, it will put the lantern out.
Combat hot keys can turn the tide of battle.
You can set up combat hot keys to access curative items like health potions, herbs, and stamina restore. Here’s how to do it.
- Press the ‘–‘ button to open your curatives menu.
- Choose ‘A‘ to select curatives and then highlight the item.
- Press ‘A‘ again to bring up the menu and then press ‘X.’
- Choose Up, Down, Left, or Right for the item.
Now in order to use the item in combat, you press L + R buttons together and the item hot key you chose. I have my lantern set to L+R+Up and my ‘Dessicated Herbs’ potions set to L+R+Down for easy access without having to re-open the items menu.
Legendary monsters have weak spots.
Many of the monsters and bosses you encounter with multiple health bars have a weak spot. Targeting that weak spot will knock the monster down for about ten seconds, giving you and your pawns an opening to do a lot of damage. The weak spots differ depending on what you’re fighting and monsters may have multiple weak spots. Try using ZR to grab a large monster and climb around to find the weak spot.
Is it possible to transfer Dragon’s Dogma PC save to Switch?
No, currently there is no mechanism to transfer a PC save file to Switch. Perhaps Capcom will build something like that now that Dragon’s Dogma 2 has been announced. For now, it’s best to start a new character on Switch and play differently than you played on PC.
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